Economic Reasons for Promoting Social Change

In this weekend's Financial Times there is a short article, easy to miss amongst louder headlines describing tensions in Gaza and the growing friendship between Russia and Venezuela. It describes the struggles that are daily faced by those brave women who are attempting to practice law in the male-dominated world of Saudi Arabia.

The article is notable for two reasons. First, stories of both verbal and actual lashings, refusals to allow practicioners to speak in or even to enter courtrooms, and the relegation of women to family law (which is not, in any way meant as a slight to family law; there are simply women who wish to practice in other areas), are all useful for providing perspective. For all of the talk of the trials (no pun intended) and tribulations of learning and practicing law in the US, it is a rare American lawyer in contemporary times who will have faced anything approaching a fraction of the difficulty that their female Saudi counterparts face on a daily basis.

Secondly, both in the lawyering context and in a broader sense, it is striking that an entire nation is purposely depriving itself of the resources of half of its population. Blawgconomics is by no means an expert on the ways of Islamic society, and typically we find that politics and religion are far more awkward concepts to intersect than law and economics. However, throughout the Muslim world, the inability of women to do everything from practice law to appear in public alone deprives those societies of valuable resources in an increasingly integrated world. And, while it is a difficult matter to discuss Islamic society through Western-tinted glasses, it must nonetheless be true that reducing the resources of a society leaves it worse off. While this is bad, it is just possible that it could lead to a positive impact at some point in the future.

Despite glass ceilings, gender stereotyping, the ongoing debate regarding work/life/family balance and the fact that discrimination against women undoubtedly takes many forms in modern Western society, it is also true that examples of women in positions of power, both in the halls of politics and at the heads of companies are plentiful and well-known enough to render a list of them unnecessary.  It would unquestionably make businesses, courts, economies and nations worse off if these women were replaced across the board with less-qualified men, as silly as such a notion might sound. However, this system describes the current state of affairs in states such as Saudi Arabia. Though such an outcome seems a far way off, it is not inconceivable that one day, a realization of the negative impact on economies of this system could lead Islamic societies to give more freedom to women, a true example of economics providing the platform for positive social change.

Human rights advocates would certainly like to think that their efforts are what shape the debate in everything from civil rights abuses to torture to the topic at hand. However, it is often money that talks and forces change. The current and ongoing position of women in Islamic states could be a great future example of this. And, if someday it is a realization that the negative impact of purposely and systematically reducing resources available to a state's economy is what gains rights for women rather than some sort of idealized and hypocritical notion of Western-style enlightenment, that will be just fine.